Hannah's Touch

by Laura Langston

  Accepting the fact that I couldn’t spend the rest of my life in my bedroom, I went back to school the day of our theme dinner.

  When I walked into foods, the ovens were preheating and the room smelled faintly of cinnamon. The spicy warmth made the place feel cozy. Lexi stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by people. Scratch cozy. Clutching my bag of groceries, I headed for our cooking station.

  “Hey, can you believe it?” Lexi called out as I walked past.

  Oh no. Had Marie told what I’d said?

  I kept on going. “Believe what?”

  “Mandy Kloss is pregnant.”

  I was grateful that they weren’t talking about me, and also grateful that I was the first of our group to arrive. At least I had two things to be grateful for, I thought as I unpacked my groceries. Because I sure wasn’t looking forward to working with Tom. And seeing Marie wouldn’t be a thrillfest either.

  “Hey.”

  Speak of the devil. Or should I say, the saint? Marie even looked the part this morning in her pale pink sweater. “Hey,” I answered. She was staring at me with the strangest expression on her face.

  Well, wasn’t this awkward? I turned back to the counter, rearranged the chicken and peppers, the tortilla wraps, the cheese.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  The tone in her voice got to me, like, I don’t know, chalk on the board, a needle in my skin, an insult. Obviously she thought I was crazy.

  I whirled around. “I’m fine.”

  Tom and Alan walked into the class and stopped to talk to Lexi. Knowing I only had a minute, I asked, “Who did you tell? About what I said the other day?”

  She turned fifty shades of red.

  Oh God. So much for Mandy Kloss. “Who?” I demanded.

  “My pastor,” she whispered. “He wants to see you.”

  And let someone else tell me I was the Devil’s BFF? No thanks. “Anybody else?” I pressed.

  “No!”

  It suddenly occurred to me that if Marie had told, the whole religion thing would have come up, and that was a subject she usually avoided. In fact, I think the only people at school who knew about her church life were me and Kristen. Plus, Marie didn’t gossip. Not usually.

  “Pastor Rick is a really good guy,” she added.

  I didn’t need her pastor judging me or making me more afraid than I already was. I needed help figuring out what was happening. And what I could do about it.

  She pressed a slip of paper into my hand. “Call him.”

  I stared into Marie’s warm brown eyes. She was just trying to help. Even if it wasn’t the kind of help I needed. I shoved the paper into my pocket. “Thanks.”

  Alan swaggered into the cooking station and plopped his bag onto the counter. Bottles clunked. “I’ve got everything we need for the sangria,” he said.

  Tom’s crutches thudded softly against the floor as he hobbled to Alan’s side. “For the virgin sangria,” he said. The two of them broke out laughing and started shoving each other sideways to get at the bag.

  If Alan and Tom brought booze, I was going straight to Drummond. I glanced at Marie. She was chewing her lip; she knew how I felt. Barely breathing, I watched them unload the ingredients: purple grape juice, apple and lemon juices, club soda, some oranges. No booze in sight. I started breathing again.

  Smirking, Tom leaned against the counter. “So, Hannah Banana, what can I do for you today?”

  The suggestive tone in his voice set my teeth on edge. But if we started arguing, we’d lose marks, and there was no way I’d let that happen. Ninety minutes, I repeated to myself. Ninety minutes and I’m free.

  I grabbed an onion, slapped it down in front of him, along with a cutting board and knife. “Peel and cut,” I ordered. If he was going to be an ass, I’d give him the nasty jobs.

  “I’ll peel your onion any day.”

  Alan snickered.

  Pretending not to hear, I reached under the counter for the grater. “I’ll grate the cheese.”

  “Cheese, please,” Alan said. The two guys laughed like they were watching a special on the Comedy Network.

  I had the cheese grated in less than a minute. I set it aside, oiled a pan and glanced over at Tom. I wanted to brown the onion along with the green pepper and chicken. But the way he was goofing off with Alan, he was going to be a while. He’d put his crutches down, and he was having trouble standing. “Why don’t you sit at the table and cut,” I suggested, surprised by the jolt of pity I felt.

  He glanced at me. There was an odd, pinched look on his face. “Sitting is for wusses,” he said.

  Whatever. I washed and chopped the pepper, opened the package of tortilla wraps, greased the casserole dish.

  “Your onion,” Tom said when he set the cutting board on the counter beside me a few minutes later. He was bobbing all over the place like a sailboat in a storm.

  What a hack job, I thought. The pieces were way too big; I was going to have to cut them again.

  “Problem?” Tom asked.

  I glanced up, prepared to lie, and that’s when I smelled it. Booze. Something must have shown on my face, because Tom’s smirk deepened. “Have another job for me, Hannah Banana?”

  “You’ve been drinking.”

  “Sssh.” Tom shot a look to the front of the room, where Drummond was talking to a couple of other kids.

  Startled, Marie looked up from the flan crust she was rolling. Alan bolted to my side.

  “It’s not even nine thirty in the morning,” I said.

  “You got a problem with that?” he asked.

  “I’ve got a problem with you.” My anger boiled up, dark and heavy, choking my air, erasing all thoughts but one: Tom’s drinking had killed Logan. How dare he walk in here drunk and remind me of that?

  I poked him with my finger. “You’re an asshole, Tom Shields. A selfish prick. You don’t think of anyone but yourself. Ever. You only do what you want. Party hearty, that’s your motto, right? Well, that motto killed Logan, and if you keep it up, it’s going to kill you.” There was a blank, unreadable look on his face, and it inflamed me. I poked him again, harder this time.

  “Don’t touch me,” he snarled. His face filled with color. “You have no right.”

  “And you have no right to walk in here drunk and ruin it for the rest of us. Now get out of my way.” I shoved past him harder than I needed to.

  He pitched sideways. Automatically, I reached out and grabbed his arm to stop the fall. As soon as I touched him, it happened. My anger surged, bringing the power with it. It rose and filled me, stretching me beyond the class, beyond the school, back to the size I’d been after the bee sting. I felt Logan. I felt the presence. I felt the hum.

  And I knew what I was supposed to do. I knew why the weirdness was happening, and I knew what Logan wanted. I knew my purpose.

  I was supposed to heal Tom Shields.

  No freakin’ way.

  I dropped my hand, let him go. The heat and power and fullness raced out of me so fast I felt cold and empty and small.

  And when Tom fell to the floor, I turned and walked away.

  Chapter Ten

  Cruel? I don’t think so.

  The guy was drunk. I didn’t want to help him. Besides, as far as I could tell, the only help Tom needed was somebody to tie his hands behind his back so he wouldn’t drink so much.

  I didn’t realize until later how sick he was.

  “Apparently the pain in his leg has been getting worse for weeks, and he’s been self-medicating with booze,” Marie said when she called that night. I was sitting in my window seat with Bounce on my lap and the radio playing softly in the background. “His mom kept trying to get him to the doctor, but he wouldn’t go. Turns out he’s got some kind of raging infection around the steel pins. They’ve got him on iv antibiotics. According to his sister’s MySpace page, he could lose his leg.”

  “That sucks.” It did. I was still choked that Tom had come to foods drunk, and I’d n
ever forgive him for daring Logan to race, but losing a leg was ugly. Shame wormed through me.

  I shouldn’t have shoved him.

  Help Tom.

  Logan was inside my head.

  “I wonder if I should go see him.”

  I didn’t want to. I still had trouble believing that I could heal people, that healing existed at all. And for sure I didn’t want to heal Tom Shields.

  “Me and Lexi might go see him tomorrow afternoon but, um, I think his family would, you know, rather it was just the two of us.”

  There was an awkward pause. Marie didn’t want me there. I didn’t want me there.

  She changed the subject. “I’m praying for him,” she said. “You can too. Anybody can do that.”

  Even me. Somebody who didn’t go to church. Somebody who heard voices, who felt a presence, who thought her dead boyfriend was sending her messages.

  “Right.”

  “Did you call Pastor Rick?”

  “Not yet.”

  Another awkward pause. Then Marie said, “By the way, Drummond says we can do the meal over next week, just the three of us.” I heard a familiar song drift out from the radio. “And we won’t lose any marks,” she added.

  “That’s good.”

  It was Van Morrison singing “I’ll Be Your Lover Too.” I stopped breathing. How random was that?

  “For sure,” Marie said. “It’s one thing to be grateful for in this whole mess.”

  Grateful. I clicked off and tossed the phone down beside me. The familiar lyrics filled my bedroom. “I come…to be the one…who’s always standing next to you.” My eyes blurred; a lump the size of Manhattan closed my throat.

  It was our song. Logan’s and mine. We hadn’t picked it (trust me, we would have picked something better), it picked us. It followed us around and kept popping up everywhere we went. The only reason we noticed was that our fathers both loved Van Morrison.

  I buried my face in the pillow and began to weep. “Yes, I will,” Van Morrison sang. “Yes, I will.”

  “No, I won’t!” I lifted my head and yelled at the wall. “I won’t.”

  How dare Logan ask me to help the guy who had raced with him?

  I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. And I would go to the hospital and prove it.

  I didn’t want to go during visiting hours and risk running into Marie or Lexi, so I went about 10:30 the next morning.

  Hospital routines were predictable. There was always a lull after 10:00, once breakfast was over and the doctors had done their rounds. Get in, prove a point, get out. That was my plan.

  I walked in the front door like I belonged and headed straight for the elevator. Luck was on my side; nobody stopped me. Following the directions Tom’s sister had e-mailed, I got off the elevator and turned left. It wasn’t like I’d get lost. I knew the floor; I’d stayed here after my bee sting.

  When I saw the three nurses at the desk, my heart skipped a beat. I needed to get past them without being stopped. I turned my head and looked the other way. Silly, but I was playing that little kid game: if I don’t see them, they won’t see me.

  Three steps past. Then four. And five. A nurse cleared her throat. I was going to get busted. I just knew it. But I didn’t. Fifteen seconds later, I was around the corner and home free.

  Tom was halfway down the hall, in a semi-private room. I hesitated in the doorway. There was an empty space where the other bed was supposed to be. At least I didn’t have to worry about another patient complaining that I was breaking the rules. But Tom’s mom was there, sitting curled over him like a comma. I should have expected it, but I hadn’t. I must have made a sound, or maybe she sensed me, because she looked up.

  “You’re Hannah Sinclair,” she said when she came to the door. We’d met at Logan’s funeral, but I hardly recognized her. The last eleven months had not been kind. Her face was heavily lined, her hair in need of a cut and color.

  “Yes. I’m—” I’m here to see your son so he can verbally abuse me and I can prove to my dead boyfriend that he doesn’t want my help. “I thought I’d stop in and say hi. Just for a minute.”

  “He’s not really up for talking,” she said. “He’s had a rough night.”

  I tried, Logan. I did.

  “But if you don’t mind sitting with him, I’d appreciate a chance to grab a cup of coffee and a muffin from downstairs,” she said. “I can’t eat in front of him. The smell of food makes him sick.”

  “Sure.” I followed her to the bed.

  She leaned down and whispered something in Tom’s ear. Then she straightened and took her purse from the back of the chair. “I won’t be long.” Her footsteps echoed out the door.

  I slid into her seat. Tom’s eyes were shut. He was on his back, still and white. Was he even breathing? Nervously I studied his chest, feeling a flutter of relief when I saw the rise and fall of the sheet. Starting to second-guess myself (what was I supposed to do now—wake him up and say Logan wanted me to give him a healing?) I glanced around the room. It was standard-issue hospital: a bathroom in the corner, a wall-mounted tv, and machines. Machines hooked up to Tom. One had a screen with a spiky green line, the other held a bag of clear fluid.

  “What are you doing here?” He spoke so quietly at first I thought I’d imagined it. But when I glanced back, his eyes were open. He was staring straight at me.

  “I...um...” Should I tell him the truth? Should I pick up his hand? Yeah, that would so fly. “I had an errand to run. I thought I’d come in and say hi.”

  “Done. Now leave.” He closed his eyes again.

  I couldn’t. I’d promised his mom I’d wait until she came back.

  “Go,” he said.

  I bit my tongue. Be kind. The guy’s sick.

  “I don’t need you sitting there judging me for being a screwup. Now go.”

  “I’m not judging you.”

  His eyes flew open. “You are.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “I don’t need you beating me up. I can beat myself up.”

  Yeah, right. If Tom had a conscience, I’d never seen it. More tongue-biting.

  “Don’t you believe me? Don’t you think I’m sorry?”

  No. My tongue was probably bleeding by now.

  He fisted the hospital blanket in his hand. “I have a real bad infection.”

  Here was my chance to tell him. I opened my mouth, but he spoke before I could.

  “I could lose my leg. They’re deciding tomorrow.”

  My control broke. “You’re worried about your leg? Logan’s dead. I bet he’d trade you places.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” His voice climbed. Moisture pooled in the corner of his eyes. “I can’t forget. I never will! Logan was my best friend. If it wasn’t for me, he’d still be—” His face crumbled. He rolled over and faced the wall. “Get out of here.”

  Oh, crap. His anger was one thing, but I hadn’t expected him to cry.

  His shoulders shook. Tears mangled his words. “Just go!” Great gulping sobs filled the room.

  He was crying the way I’d cried for months after Logan’s death. My old pain yawned open, a great black hole that threatened to suck me in.

  Blinking back tears, I rushed to shut the door. I didn’t want the nurse to hear. I prayed his mom would take her time too.

  “Logan wouldn’t want this,” I said, sitting back down.

  His answering wail was haunting; it curled the hair on the back of my neck. “Tom!” I reached out but stopped just short of touching him. I was afraid to. “Tom, don’t.”

  He kept crying.

  After a minute, I couldn’t stand it. There was only one way to comfort him. Taking a deep breath, I reached out and touched his shoulder.

  Chapter Eleven

  I was taking a chance. If Lexi felt something when I touched her, Tom might too. But I couldn’t let fear stand in the way of being kind. Touching Tom felt right and natural. Since the accident, there’d been moments when my grief for Logan had a
lmost choked me. Sometimes I’d been alone with it. Other times Mom had been there, stroking my hair, soothing me with her touch.

  Tom deserved the same comfort. “I know you’re hurting.” I rubbed his bony shoulder through the sheet. “I know you feel bad. I do. But it’ll get better. It will.”

  I braced myself for the hum, for the stretch, for the presence. A part of me wanted it to come, and bring Logan with it, and a part of me wanted it to stay away forever so I could be normal again.

  But all I felt was Tom’s misery, the guilt that needled him with every breath. His leg wasn’t the only thing hurting. The pain of Logan’s death was like a black mark on his soul.

  He blamed himself. I saw that now.

  He’d been hiding his feelings behind a mask of indifference and cruelty. That’s probably why he drank so much. To try and forget. It was working so well for him too. Not.

  After a minute, his crying slowed. I kept my hand on his shoulder and willed the presence to come. For the first time, I wanted it to come. I wanted Tom well.

  But my body was as empty as a glass waiting for milk.

  It wasn’t going to work. M.C. was wrong. Marie was right. I had imagined everything. So what was it Logan was trying to tell me? Why was I here?

  Tom shifted under the covers. I lifted my hand and leaned back in my chair. He rolled over, stared up at the ceiling. He was probably dead with embarrassment. I would have been. Dead with embarrassment. The irony of the phrase didn’t escape me.

  “Marie and Lexi will probably come by this afternoon.” I wanted to pretend the last five minutes hadn’t happened.

  He was silent.

  “Everybody’s worried about you.”

  He turned his head. His cheeks were streaked with tears, his eyes too bright. Fever, I thought. “I owe you an apology,” he said.

  I owed Tom an apology more. I had been judging him. I’d blamed him for Logan’s death. Anger wouldn’t bring Logan back. Neither would guilt. Dr. Fernandez was right: guilt was a waste of time.

  “I’ve been a total jerk to you since it happened.”

  “I’ve said some awful things too.” I didn’t want to talk about the accident anymore. For the first time in a year, I was ready to look forward and not back. “Can’t we try and forget?”